[ By Howard Haykin ] If Wall Street is going to pay for JMorgan's mistakes and errant ways that led to a $2.3 billion trading loss, we'll just have to be patient and wait a while longer.  Perhaps regulators will tighten rules for big banks;  perhaps lawmakers will decide not to ease up on plans to temper oversight of Wall Street. The House Agriculture Committee, which was to address 3 bills that aim to ease crucial aspects of the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul law, postponed the hearing.  They also scrapped plans for Thursday to debate and amend the legislation, which lawmakers introduced as part of a broader effort to rein in Dodd-Frank. Committee chairman Frank Lucas (Rep-OK) said in a statement that the staff "will take the time to gather all relevant information before we proceed to ensure there are no unintended consequences of the legislation that would encourage recklessness in our financial institutions." What to Make of the Delay. The decision to delay the legislation markup was the latest repercussion of JPMorgan’s trading blunder.  Ever since the bank disclosed last week that it lost at least $2 billion tied to its credit derivatives trading, reformers and politicians have renewed calls for strict Wall Street regulation.  Much attention has focused on the so-called Volcker Rule, which prevents banks from trading with their own money, a policy that is intended prevent bank blowups that necessitate bailouts.  Mr. Lucas, however, intimated that the bills were unrelated to the JPMorgan activities that led to the trading blowup.  Chairman Lucas added:

"As always, Washington has a tendency to overreact.  While the news of JP Morgan’s trading loss is unfortunate, the bipartisan legislation the committee was scheduled to consider is unrelated to the cause of the trading loss."

Interestingly, one key element of the bills has some direct connections to the JPMorgan trading debacle.  If enacted, the measures would exempt foreign subsidiaries from some derivatives rules.  Some of JPMorgan’s suspect derivatives trading took place in London. [Dealbook, 5/15/12]